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Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 heard Rosza’s Spellbound played on a phonograph; (2) heard the monitor laugh hysterically in the room; (3) was addressed as “Mr. Van Gogh” by the monitor, (4) was shown paintings done by mental patients; (5) was given a pill and a glass of water, and (6) was daubed with a piece of cotton dipped in acetone. The receiver was an English “sensitive,” but it is obvious that no psychic sensitivity was required to figure out the general content of the picture and to produce an appropriate report, whether any dreams were actually seen or not. (pp. 260-261) If researchers were to report positive results of the experiment described here by Zusne and Jones and were to claim that it provided some positive ev- idence of ESP, what would a reader conclude? Surely, that the researchers were completely incompetent, but probably not that they were dishonest. For dishonesty to take such a frank and transparent form is hardly credible. Incompetence of the researchers is not, however, a proper inference. The simple fact, which anyone can casily verify, is that the account Zusne and Jones gave of the experiment is grossly inaccurate. What Zusne and Jones have done is to describe (for one specific night of the experiment) some of the stimuli provided to the dreamer the next morning, after his dreams had been recorded and his night’s sleep was over. Zusne and Jones erroneously stated that these Stimuli were provided before the night’s sleep, to prime the subject to have or falsely report having the desired kind of dream. The correct sequence of events was quite clearly stated in the brief reference Zusne and Jones cited (Ullman & Krippner, 1978), as well as in the original research report (Krippner, Honorton, & Ullman, 1972). ] can understand and sympathize with Zusne and Jones's error. The experiment they cited is one in which the nocturnal dreamer was seeking to dream in response to a set of stimuli to be created and pre- sented to him the next morning. As may be seen in Table |, results from such precognitive sessions (all done with a single subject) were especially strong. This apparent transcendence of time as well as space makes the precognitive findings seem at least doubly impos- sible to most of us. An easy misreading, therefore, on initially scanning the research report, would be to suppose the stimuli to have been presented partly in advance (because some parts obviously involved a waking subject) and partly during sleep. This erroneous reading on which Zusne and Jones based their account could easily have been.cor- rected by a more careful rereading. In dealing with Other topics, they might have realized the improba- bility that researchers could have been so grossly in- competent.and could have checked the accuracy of their statements before publishing them. Zusne and Jones are not alone in this tendency to quick misper- ception of parapsychological research through pre- conception and prejudice; we have already seen it in Alcock’s book. Alcock) (1983) wrote the review of Zusne and Jones's book for Contemporary Psychology, the book-review jou of the American Psycholog- ical Association, and he did not mention this egregious error, even though very slight. acquaintance with the Maimonides research should suffice to detect it. Discussion The experiments at the Maimonides Medical Center on the possibility of ESPiin dreams clearly merit care- ful attention from psychologists who, for whatever reason, are interested inj the question of ESP. To firm believers in the impossibility of ESP, they pose a chal- lenge to skill in detecting experimental flaws or to the understanding of other sources of error. To those who can conceive that ESP might be possible, they convey suggestions about some of the conditions influencing its appearance or absen and about techniques for investigating it. This attention is not likely to be given by psy- . chologists whose knowl comes from the books that purport to review Some of those books e sification of thie facts Simply neglect them. I none of these books has in the Maimonides ex ge about the experiments y their fellow psychologists parapsychological research. ge in nearly incredible fal- ut the experiments; others lieve it is fair to say that rrectly identified any defect iments other than ones rel- evant only to the hypothesis of fraud or on inappro- priate statistical reasoning (easily remedied by new calculations from the pu that the Maimonides ex and execution. I have design flaw that prevents the experiments; and the Olated at one session, as the basis of the full info inal report. (Neither o mentioned in any of the here, an indication of correct information abo ments.) lished data). I do not mean iments are models of design ready called attention to a sensitive analysis of some of control procedures were vi- ets (1984) pointed out on tion supplied in the orig- these genuine defects was five books I have reviewed cir authors’ general lack of 1 the Maimonides experi- Readers who doubt that the falsification is as ex- reduced by familiarity research (1981, 1984). In} similar misrepresentatio ‘ness of procedures of psychologists would not it need only consult the . Their doubt might also be th some of James Bradley's is 1984 article, he reported of fact on a topic, robust- istical. inference, on which thought to have nearly the strength of preconception that many are known to have about ESP. How much more likely, then, falsi- fication on so emotionally laden a topic as ESP is for many psychologists! In the earlier article, Bradley (1981) presented experimental evidence (for college students, in this case, not psychologists) that confi- 1228 November 1985 » American Psychologist Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 a